“Crystallize” - A Lighting Time Code by Eddy Sound

Aug 7

With big inspiration comes big aspirations. After spending numerous hours designing, rigging, and flying the truss structure as well as placing all of the lighting fixtures, we knew we needed to choose a song to timecode that was worthy of our larger than life rig. “Crystallize” by Eliminate & Leah Culver was the perfect fit. With intricate sound design and beautiful vocals, we knew the track would make our rig shine.

Following the completion of our timecode, we reached out to Leah Culver to ask what the song meant to her. She explained it was about being so in love with someone that you are paralyzed by it, even if you know that “something is kind of not right in the moment, but still staying because you feel paralyzed because you love them.” When asked if there was anything else she wanted people to know, Leah stated, “If you are ever in a relationship where you feel like that, do not be afraid to leave, because better things are around the corner.”

While designing the show, we tried to encapsulate the emotion portrayed through Leah’s vocals, as well as compliment the incredible sound design from Eliminate. We felt that the precise and unique sounds of the song needed to be reflected with the same attention to detail in the lighting design. The color palette was selected to coincide with the specific sections and mood of the track. The more lyrical sections are done in blues, greens, purples and magentas while the harsher, dubstep like breakdowns, in reds and white to mimic the intense feeling we experienced while listening.

Finally, we attempted to use lasers with pin-point accuracy, lining the beams up with many of the rhythms throughout the song. Switching back and forth from thick, wave-like ceiling looks and complex beams, it’s a testament to the X-Laser Skywriter HPX laser projectors and their proprietary Mercury programming language. This ornate laser work was programmed in the same software, Vista 3 by Chroma-Q, as all of the other lighting fixtures included in the rig. This makes integrating high powered laser projectors into our projects an absolute breeze. Over the course of 191 lighting cues and approximately 25 hours of programming, we hope we were able to do the song justice in the eyes of the artists.